Coatesville district to revert some dual-enrollment classes to AP weight, adopts 2025–26 course selections

The Coatesville Area School District Education Committee on Jan. 14 voted to send to the full board a revised 2025–26 high school course selection guide that changes how Delaware County Community College dual-enrollment courses are weighted on students’ transcripts and shifts biology from ninth to 10th grade for the district.

The change on dual-enrollment weighting was described to the committee by a staff member, Brian Changer. “Prior to the school year, those courses were all weighted as advanced placement weight with a 10% weight to them,” Changer said. He told the committee the administration audited Delaware County course descriptions and identified which classes should retain AP weighting and which should be weighted as honors. The guide will include an appendix listing the courses under each weight category.

The committee also advanced the district’s 2025–26 high school course selection guide, which the staff summarized as containing several substantive updates: the addition of AP Seminar and AP Research within English (allowing students to qualify for an AP Capstone diploma), removal of a meteorology course in science, alignment of biology as primarily a 10th-grade course (with honors biology remaining an option in ninth), and the addition of an “American Currents” junior-level honors history course.

Why it matters: Committee members said the dual-enrollment weighting adjustment is intended to make transcript GPA and class-rank comparisons fairer between students who take many Delaware County classes and students who take Advanced Placement courses at the high school. Committee discussion cited concerns about students who spend much of the day at Delaware County having an “unfair advantage” in weighted GPA and class-rank calculations. Changer said the district’s program is unusually large and that the district provides Delaware County enrollment to students at no cost.

Discussion and next steps: Committee members asked how Coatesville’s approach compares with other Chester County districts. Changer said responses varied: “9 of them count their dual credits as advanced placement,” he told the committee, but other districts either attach honors weight, no weight, or a hybrid approach. Board members asked how the biology schedule change will affect Keystone testing; Changer said Keystone exams are end-of-course assessments and students will take the biology Keystone after the course regardless of grade level, and that moving biology to 10th grade is intended to give students more preparation.

The Education Committee voted to move the course selection guide, the dual-enrollment weighting revision (agenda item P), and the biology course-sequence modification (agenda item O) to the full board meeting at the end of the month for final consideration.